Livingston Manor digs out from flooding again

The hamlet that has been hit by repeated flooding over the past decade was hit again on September 18, as torrential rains moved through the area. This time it was Cattail Creek coming down from Shandelee mountain that caused the problems. Two homes in Livingston Manor were rendered unlivable, and others were seriously damaged.

The raging water also knocked out three bridges, but according to Town of Rockland supervisor Ed Weitmann, one bridge was re-opened by Wednesday evening, so that residents of 10 houses that had been stranded then had a way out.

Road crews were working on the bridges on Thursday, while debris was still scattered in lawns by the creek. Weitman said one of the reasons the flood was so damaging was because of the eighty or ninety trees that were swept down from the mountain, and blocked the water from going under the bridge. “If the water can’t go under the bridge,” he said, it will go somewhere else.”